Health Care-Associated Infections
Opposition Day — [1st allotted day]
6:49 pm
Question accordingly agreed to.
Mr. Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House recognises that healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs) are a worldwide problem; acknowledges that the recent Comprehensive Spending Review settlement for the NHS includes £270 million to tackle HCAI; welcomes the initiatives the NHS is taking to manage infection control, including a new "bare below the elbows" dress code, new clinical guidance to increase the use of isolation for infected patients published in September, every hospital to undertake a deep clean as part of a wider drive for a culture of cleanliness, matrons and clinical directors to report directly to trust boards on infection control and cleanliness, annual infection control inspections of all acute trusts using teams of specialist inspectors, and MRSA screening for all elective admissions next year; further welcomes the introduction of legislation for a new health and adult social care regulator with tough powers to inspect, investigate and intervene in hospitals that do not meet rigorous standards for cleanliness and a new legal requirement on chief executives to report all MRSA bacteraemias and clostridium difficile infections to the Health Protection Agency; believes that centrally determined targets for tackling HCAIs are the most effective way of ensuring infection levels are reduced in every hospital; notes that as a consequence MRSA bloodstream infection numbers are falling; and welcomes the Better Care for All PSA Delivery Agreement, which sets two new targets for the period 2010-11 to keep MRSA bloodstream infections below half the numbers of 2003-04, and to deliver a 30 per cent. reduction in clostridium difficile infections from the numbers in 2007-08.'.